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Most PS4 games required to support Vita Remote Play

When Sony debuted PS4, it showcased the ability to stream games to Vita via Remote Play. And apparently, supporting Sony's handheld is now mandatory for most games coming to Sony's new home console.

When Sony debuted PS4, it showcased the ability to stream games to Vita via Remote Play. And apparently, supporting Sony's handheld is now mandatory for most games coming to Sony's new home console.

"Yes, it's true unless the game requires specific hardware like the camera," Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida said on Twitter. "It will be great to play PS4 games on PS Vita."

The decision will certainly be a boon for the long-suffering Vita handheld, which has struggled to attract a significant audience. However, it will cause more work for PS4 developers, as they will have to make sure that the game can be controlled with Vita's more restrictive pad. Compared to DualShock 4, Vita features two fewer shoulder buttons, and is missing L3 and R3 buttons in the sticks. Vita's dual touch panels will undoubtedly come into play to replicate some of these functions.

Digital Foundry notes that Remote Play works by downscaling 1080p video from PS4 to Vita's native 960x544 resolution. "Downscaling the native 1080p image for the Vita screen will lose some detail, but on the plus side we should get some great 'built-in' SSAA from the downsampling effect." a developer said in their report.

Remote Play support of console games is not new. However, support on PS3 and PSP was limited due to the software video encoding necessary via Cell SPUs, which would take away from the performance of the game. Streaming PS4 games to a handheld won't take a performance hit however, because Sony's new console "features bespoke hardware video encoding for Remote Play," meaning the mandate won't cost developers any additional computational power.